1. Field
The present disclosure relates to an image capturing apparatus and method.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, electronic cameras have become widespread. In an electronic camera, an image of an object is formed on a semiconductor imaging element, for example, an image sensor, through an image capturing optical system. The image of the object is converted into an electrical signal and image data of a still image acquired according to the conversion is recorded to a recording medium such as a semiconductor memory or a magnetic disk.
Many electronic cameras are equipped with an autofocus (AF) mechanism for controlling image capturing conditions to automatically focus on the image of the object. In single-lens reflex cameras, phase-difference AF technology is being adopted in a wide range to achieve AF. The phase-difference AF is effective in that an in-focus point may match an image in one driving operation because a distance of the in-focus point from the image may be immediately recognized based on a distance (phase difference) between images when light from the image of the object is received by a phase-difference detection sensor with a charge-coupled device (CCD) line sensor.
On the other hand, a user conventionally captures an image by pressing a shutter button at a proper moment or sets a timer to enable automatic image capturing after a given time. However, it may be difficult to obtain an image desired by the user from captured images because the timing at which the user presses the shutter button may not be correct in the case of an object which moves at a high speed.